The image on our cover this month was created for AJN by artist Janet Hamlin to illustrate the strengths-based nursing (SBN) approach to care. SBN focuses on the inner and outer strengths of patients and their families, promoting empowerment, self-efficacy, and hope while creating environments that work with and bolster patients' innate capacity for healing. This approach agrees with Florence Nightingale's vision of the nurse's role, and incorporates her teaching to honor the patients' right to have their values and beliefs respected.

Figure. The image on our cover this month was created for

Unlike the medical model, with its focus on diagnosing and fixing what's wrong with the patient, SBN focuses on understanding deficits and problems within a broader, more holistic context. This approach is centered on the patient, and nurses must build a relationship with their patients in order to care for them. As Patricia Benner has noted, SBN puts "into words what expert nurses come to know and experience over time in their best practice[horizontal ellipsis] [and gives] clarity, insight, and rigor to a central but poorly understood value and wisdom embedded in the best of nursing practice." For more on the SBN approach to care, see this month's CE feature, "Strengths-Based Nursing." To learn more about the illustrator, whose work frequently appears in AJN, see her Web site at http://www.janethamlin.com.-Michael Fergenson, senior editorial coordinator